Best way to convert a signed integer to an unsigned long?

Question

For certain hash functions in Java it would be nice to see the value as an unsigned integer (e.g. for comparison to other implementations) but Java supports only signed type

Answer 1

You can use a function like

public static long getUnsignedInt(int x) {
    return x & (-1L >>> 32);
}

however in most cases you don't need to do this. You can use workarounds instead. e.g.

public static boolean unsignedEquals(int a, int b) {
    return a == b;
}

For more examples of workarounds for using unsigned values. Unsigned utility class